Daughters of Freedom
(2001, 44 minutes)

The story of the special lifelong friendship of two Doukhobor women who were seized from their homes as young girls and incarcerated in British Columbia's New Denver School Dormitory.
Helen Chernoff Freeman and Kathleen Shlakoff Makortoff met under the worst of circumstances, but they became the best of friends. In the early 1950s, Helen and Kathleen's Young lives were torn apart when they were seized from their homes by the RCMP and incarcerated in BC's New Denver School Dormitory, a facility that had interned the Japanese during World War II.
For almost four years, Helen and Kathleen suffered the atrocities of life in this sterile institution. They were forbidden to speak their native Russian and strapped when they cried from loneliness. But the worst abuse they suffered was the physical separation from their families. Starved of affection and intimacy, Helen and Kathleen were united in their grief. Over the years, this bond has proven to be a liberating force in each of their lives, stronger than the abuse they suffered at the school, and the politics that put them there.

Director: Christian Bruyère
Producers: Mary Bissell, Christian Bruyère

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